Those of you who are thinking of entering for the Scholarship Biology exam at the end of the year may have had a look at the statement of just what is expected (the ‘performance descriptors’). If you have, you’ll have seen that one of the key attributes you need to demonstrate is an ability to think criticaly: about the question; about the supporting materials that the examiner may have provided; about your own knowledge (you don’t want to do a brain dump, after all – this will not impress the examiner one bit!).
I’ve written quite a bit about this in the past (here, here, & here, for example). Today I thought I’d add to that, with a closer look at some of the questions that you, as a critical thinker, might ask about a topic. (This is a modified version of something I’ve posted on the ‘other’ blog, Talking Teaching, wihich I share with my colleagues Marcus & Fabiana.)
At the end of my last Talking Teaching post I mentioned critical thinking – & said I’d leave that topic till later. This is ‘later’ 🙂
If you ask a teacher to list the attributes that they’d like to see in their students when they move on to further education, then ‘critical thinking’ will feature somewhere on that list. It’ll probably be in most tertiary institutions’ ‘graduate profiles’ as well. What I’d like to consider is, do our students measure up to that aspiration? How well do we help them to become critical thinkers? (That last means, not just talking about it, but modelling critical thinking skills for our students – & giving them the opportunity to practice! They’ll only learn by doing.)
What is a critical thinker, anyway? I’ve heard it said that a critical thinker is someone who has an open mind on issues under discussion – but not so open that their brains fall out! When faced with a given position statement (‘therapeutic touch really works’; ‘intelligent design explains biodiversity better than evolution’; ‘scientists are wrong about global warming’; & so on), someone who thinks critically will ask things like:
- What is the source of your information?
- What assumptions are you making?
- Is a different conclusion more consistent with the data?
- What is an alternate explanation for this phenomenon?
These are ‘Socratic questions’ (if you’re working towards Schol exams, I’d suggest following that link & having a look at the entire list). Over at Skeptoid, Brian Dunning offers a good introduction to the use of these questions. And he makes a very important point. The end point of critical thinking (skepticism, if you like) should not be simply the debunking of a particular point of view. That’s not exactly helpful (even if it does provide temporary satisfaction to the debunker!) As Dunning says, “Skepticism is about applying the scientific method to arrive at a conclusion that is evidenced to be beneficial…” In other words, it’s not enough to demonstrate why a point of view is incorrect – you need to produce an interpretation or explanation that better fits the available evidence, and ideally one that can be usefully applied to solve a problem.
And learning to do that takes time. And practice.
And maybe listening to some of the Skeptoid podcasts – I know I’ve learned a lot from those myself 🙂
Kia Clarke says:
Dear Alison, I’ve got a query for you related to studying in science.
Thank-you, Kia.
Alison Campbell says:
Hi Kia
I’ve removed the content of your comment as I don’t want to publish personal information on the blog 🙂 I’ll drop you an email.
best wishes
Alison